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#69 - The Ig Nobel Prize

Every year the Ig Nobel prizes are awarded to science that ‘first makes you laugh then makes you think’. The prize ceremony his held at Harvard University and involves the premiere of a science opera and shorter scene performances involving Nobel prize winners and other prominent scientists. Since the first show in the early 1990s the ceremony has developed to one of the most popular, well-covered and funniest popular science events world-wide. The founder of the Ig Nobel Prize, Marc Abrahams, is guesting ESOF with several Ig Nobel laureates, telling their stories about why and how they came about winning the prize: Dr. Kees Moelliker, who was the first man ever to scientifically report on homosexual necrophiliac in ducks, Dr. Elena Bodnar, who won the prize for inventing a brasserie that rapidly can be transformed into a couple of face masks, and Dr. Magnus Wahlberg, who showed the Swedish Navy that they had hunted farting herring rather than Russian subs during the final part of the cold war.

Magnus Wahlberg is associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark, specializing in how animal communicate and hear under water. Originally from Sweden, he now works at the Marine Biological Research Center in Kerteminde, Denmark, where porpoises, seals and marine birds are kept and trained for scientific studies.

Some of his studies are also made at field sites all over the world. He received the IgNoble Prize in biology in 2004 for showing that sounds made by farting herring had been confused with Russian submarines during the cold war submarine hunts, that were so common in Swedish waters in the 1980s.

Magnus Wahlberg is associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark, specializing in how animal communicate and hear under water. Originally from Sweden, he now works at the Marine Biological Research Center in Kerteminde, Denmark, where porpoises, seals and marine birds are kept and trained for scientific studies.

Some of his studies are also made at field sites all over the world. He received the IgNoble Prize in biology in 2004 for showing that sounds made by farting herring had been confused with Russian submarines during the cold war submarine hunts, that were so common in Swedish waters in the 1980s.